This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Over 75 scripts are part of the basic Mac OS X installation in Jaguar. Many
of them are installed in Script Menu and are located in
/Library/Scripts. Others are part of applications. (iCal, for example,
contains four scripts that it uses to send Mail messages to invite people to
meetings or to remind you of events.)

This hour shows you each of the Script Menu scripts. It shows you how to use
them, and it points out some of the features that you can use in your own
scripts when you write them. Remember that each script in this collection comes
with its AppleScript code. You can open them in Script Editor to view that
code.

Some of the scripts are compiled scriptswith a .scpt extension; those
can be double-clicked to open them in Script Editor. Others are saved as
applications, but you can open them by dragging them on to the Script Editor
icon or by using the Open command from the Script Editor File menu. All scripts
in Script Menueven .scpt compiled scriptsrun as applications when
you select them in Script Menu.

By the end of this hour, you will have not only seen many of the things that
you can do with AppleScript, but you will have discovered new features that are
built in to Mac OS X that you may never have known were there!

NOTE

The scripts described in this hour are listed in the same groupings that are
used in Script Menu. However, in Script Menu the groupings are listed
alphabetically. Here, they go from the basic desktop scripts to the Internet
scripts and then on to more specific scripts.

In This Hour

BasicsThis is the beginning of your AppleScript adventure. In this
section, you'll see how one script works.

Finder ScriptsBuilt in to Script Menu are scripts that let you
manipulate files and their names. They're described in this
section.